


We stick together and we see it through

by Ljparis



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28034421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ljparis/pseuds/Ljparis
Summary: 5 times Reggie talked to Ray+1 time Ray talked to Reggie
Relationships: Ray Molina & Reggie
Comments: 22
Kudos: 148
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	We stick together and we see it through

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eleanor_lavish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/gifts).



> Title is from the song "You've Got a Friend in Me" by Randy Newman.
> 
> Hi, I love the Ray and Reggie friendship too, and I hope you enjoy this!

1.

Even with band practices and their shows where people could actually see him and cheer for him, Reggie's favorite part of his day was still breakfast with Ray. Julie and Carlos usually had breakfast on the go - fresh toast with jam or an orange or a smoothie - as they left for school, but Ray cooked a full breakfast and ate it by himself while reading the newspaper. On his phone.

It still felt like something out of a futuristic science-fiction flick, to Reggie, the things people in 2020 used their phones for. He was still used to calling from a landline and hoping he didn't have to leave a message on the answering machine.

That was beside the point. The point was, Ray ate breakfast in the sunlit dining room each morning as he read the paper, and Reggie joined him. They sat catty-corner from one another while Ray ate - often fried eggs and bacon and sometimes fresh-squeezed orange juice, maybe some hash browns, sometimes something a little more exciting - though of course Ray had no idea he was being kept company by a teenage ghost.

"Man, Ray, you have outdone yourself this morning," Reggie said, leaning forward so he could get a good whiff of that huevos rancheros Ray had cooked up for himself that Friday morning. "I really wish I could eat because that looks awesome."

Of course, Ray didn't reply. Honestly, every time he talked to him, Reggie held onto some small sliver of hope that, one day, he might just become visible to Ray without warning. Like, no explanation, just a pop and there's Reggie sitting at the dining table with Ray. He knew that would be jarring, sure, but it would be pretty cool, too.

"What's in the news today, huh Ray?" Reggie didn't have a good view of Ray's tablet, and he didn't really care about the news if it wasn't music-related, but it was part of their usual morning conversation.

"You know, I've never really been a news person. Too focused on music, you know? Hey, what do you say about sharing any music news with me? Like, new albums I've got to listen to or any, like, big death news." Reggie's eyes widened as a huge thought occurred to him. "Do you think that when some of these rock stars die, they might become ghosts like we did? How cool would that be, if I could find a rock star ghost mentor."

He had this immediate image pop into his head of sitting side by side with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers - he wasn't dead yet, was he? Reggie was woefully out of touch with this sort of thing from the past 25 years - strumming their basses together, talking shop, riffing back and forth, debating the music greats. What a life. What an _after_ life. If Reggie could make that happen, he'd really be set for the rest of whatever time he had left on this plane of existence. He could just imagine it - maybe they would be on the beach, maybe sitting at the edge of the Orpheum stage, maybe -

So caught up in his own rock god mentorship fantasy, Reggie didn't notice Ray had finished his breakfast until he stood up and took his plate to the kitchen. "Oh hey, Ray, cool, good talk. Just keep me updated about those rock and roll deaths, will you?" He gave Ray's back a wave. "Have a good day!" And popped out of the house.

2\. 

"So Ray, here's the thing. I'm a teenage boy, _and_ I'm a ghost, but that doesn't, like, cancel the other out. I still notice things, you know. Like the screaming girls in the audience. There was this one girl, at our show last week, who was _really_ cute. How am I supposed to handle that? I can't _do_ anything about it, right?"

Reggie flopped onto the couch with a very heavy sigh. As he did, the couch cushions bounced and his foot hit a pillow, knocking it onto the floor.

Ray looked up, confused, from where he sat on the armchair across from the couch. He narrowed his eyes at the empty couch, then at the pillow that had somehow tipped onto the floor. He looked back over his shoulder at the empty room - both Julie and Carlos were still at school - and back to the couch again. Carefully, he got up, crossed to the couch, set the pillow back on it, and stood there looking out the closed window for a long while. "Huh," he said.

Below him, invisible to Ray's lifer eyes, Reggie lay still as could be, holding his - well, not his breath exactly but holding himself steady with his cheeks puffed out. As soon as Ray returned to the armchair, he let himself relax. "Oops," he said. "That was a close call there, huh, Ray?" He swiped his hand back through his hair. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I _want_ you to be able to see me. And it's true that I've been known to play a harmless little ghosty prank on people from time to time -" He thought back to unintentionally scaring Julie's tia with the blinds and the sheet, but Reggie had had some fun other times too. "But I would _never_ do that to you, Ray."

Reggie turned his cheek against the armrest of the couch so he could look at Ray. Ray had gone back to going through some of the photos he'd taken at the band's last show, swiping through each one on the computer. Reggie couldn't really see them well from here, so he leaned forward, and forward again, and again - until he tumbled right off the couch with a clunk and a groan. Well, it didn't exactly hurt, but it was the fact that it happened.

Predictably, Ray didn't flinch.

Reggie sighed and looked at the photos. "I like that one," he said loudly. He poked at the one in Ray's hand, one of him jamming out on the bass. The photo flapped in Ray's hand. He looked around, looked right through Reggie.

"Yeah, I know," Reggie said, chided. "I know you can't see me, I get it." One would think that, by now, Reggie would be used to it. Still, every once in a while he thought, maybe this time Ray will be able to see me. And every time that Ray didn't, he had a long moment of sadness move through him.

He looked over Ray's shoulder as he continued moving through the photographs. They looked so real - the band, him and the other boys - right there on film. Why could they show up like that and yet Ray couldn't see Reggie standing right there beside him?

3.

As a ghost - a phantom, a non-lifer, a whatever-you-want-to-call-him - Reggie discovered that he could go anywhere he wanted to, including places he'd never visited when he was alive. If he wanted to see New York City, or Paris, France, or the Great Wall of China, he could. But Reggie really just wanted to stay around the familiar. That meant keeping his ghostly travels centered around Los Angeles and, more specifically, the Molina home, the band's garage, Julie's school, the LA club and venue scene, and the beach. Where he grew up and what was now a bike shop.

Reggie sat on the half wall along the bike path and stared at the place his house used to be. He did this sometimes, when he wanted some time alone. The beach felt like home, even without his house there - the rush of the water, the laughter and shouts of all the beachgoers, the tangy ocean scent hanging in the air.

He was surprised to spot Ray ducking into the shop two doors down from the bike shop. Curious, Reggie jumped up from the wall and hurried over to join him. "Hey, Ray, what's going on?" he asked, looking around the shop, which he hadn't really noticed before. It was a music store, with packed rows of sheet music, vinyl, CDs, even cassettes. "Whoa, this place is bangin'."

Eyes wide, Reggie looked over the CDs, grinning even more when he spotted Sunset Curve's album facing forward in the S section. Pride was an easy emotion to have, even for a ghost. He stood there for a long moment just looking at it. He didn't notice Ray coming up the aisle toward him.

"This is our debut," Reggie said proudly when Ray stopped near the P section. "I mean, I guess if - no when - we make an album with Julie, that'll be a debut too. For the new band. But this is Sunset Curve's debut. It's so cool to see it, like, out in the world like this. We were just hocking them at our gigs or pushing them on friends of friends, mostly. Oh! We got some play on the radio too, just there at the end. That was really awesome." 

Ray continued up the aisle, passing right through Reggie and stopping with a shiver, a sharp gasp, and a confused look on his face.

The older gentleman seated behind the register looked up, startled. "Is everything all right? Can I help you find anything?"

Reggie backed away quickly. "Er, uh - maybe I'll just go now?" He edged his way toward the door.

Ray shook his head at the shopkeeper. "No, thank you. I'm just browsing." Then, thinking better of it, he continued. "Actually - I'm looking for something for my daughter. She's in a band. They write their own music already but - well, I don't have anything specific in mind."

The gentleman came around from behind the register to join Ray (and Reggie) in the CD aisle. "What instrument does your daughter play?" he asked.

"Piano," both Ray and Reggie replied at the same time. 

Reggie grinned. He started looking around, too, thinking that he knew Julie pretty well by now and maybe he could help Ray find something. As Ray and the shopkeeper talked, Reggie moved around the store, eyes out for the perfect gift for Julie. It would mean so much to him if he could help pick out her gift. It could be from the both of them, Reggie thought, even if Ray didn't even know it.

4.

"No, no, no, Ray, you shouldn't - oh darn, come on, if you'd switched that pink candy there with the yellow one, you could have crushed that whole row and now you have to start all over again." Reggie hung his head. He'd been watching (and trying to help) Ray play some Candy Crush game on his phone for the last hour. 

Besides playing his bass and jamming with the band, Reggie didn't think there was anything he ever did for over an hour at one time. It was truly astounding how everyone just stared at their screens like this all the time, even Ray, an adult with a "real" job and things to worry about besides booking gigs or if an instrument was out of tune.

"What's the point of all this, Ray, huh? Crushing colorful candies on your phone like this. What do you get when you win? How many levels are there? Does it ever end?" With each question, his voice rose a little more, got a little bit squeakier. "You know, these are the questions that keep me up at night," he finished off, half-mumbling.

"What's going on here?" came Julie's question, the sound of the door closing behind her as she came into the house.

"Your dad's been stuck on the same level of Candy Crush for at least an hour," Reggie said, windmilling his arms a little even as he stepped away from Ray hunched over his phone. Julie smiled briefly at him.

At the same time, drawing Julie's attention between the two of them, Ray said, "Just more Candy Crush. I'm stuck again. How was school, mija?" He darkened his phone screen and tucked it into his jeans pocket as he got up from his favorite armchair. "Do you have band rehearsal tonight?"

Julie's gaze flicked past him to Reggie, who shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe. I'll have to ask the guys." 

"I think Alex is out with Willie," Reggie said. "On a _date_ ," he added in a not-really-a-whisper. 

"Besides, I have homework, and I probably need to do all of that," Julie said. She shifted her backpack a little as she shrugged. "So uh - I'll go do that now, I guess. Leave you to it."

"Ew, homework." Reggie scrunched up his nose.

"What homework do you have?" Ray asked. "Do you need any help? What do you want for dinner? I should probably get off my phone and do something productive."

"Pizza," Reggie blurted out. "Get pizza for dinner. Or tacos. Does your dad make tacos? Is that, like - can I ask that?"

"You can't even eat them," Julie answered, rolling her eyes. She clammed up at her dad's questioning tilt of his head, and hurried on. "I mean, I can't even think about eating right now! I have too much homework." She chewed on the inside of her cheek and shook her head. "But! We haven't had tacos in a while. Can we have tacos? I mean, later, at dinnertime."

Ray nodded slowly. "Yeah, we can do tacos. Are you sure you're okay?"

"She's fine, Ray," Reggie butted in, "just suffering from invisible ghost syndrome." He snickered to himself, almost wheezing, even though it was clear that Julie didn't find the joke very funny at all.

"Yeah," Julie said, clipped. "I'm fine. Going to do my homework now, bye." She sent a glare at Reggie that might have killed him if he wasn't already, well, dead. 

He just kept laughing, even harder when Ray looked around the room blankly, and confused, then disappeared into the kitchen.

5.

The boys had a lot of catching up to do in the film world, but only Reggie started doing anything about it. It helped that Ray watched a lot of TV and movies, too. When he wasn't playing around on his phone or cooking or helping Carlos with his homework or doing- well, whatever his job was. (Reggie was pretty sure it had something to do with taking photos but he never followed Ray to work, so he didn't know.)

Reggie liked movie nights with Ray. Sometimes Julie and Carlos joined, sometimes the rest of the band, but more often than not, it was just Reggie and Ray. 

As the credits rolled at the end of "The Notebook," a movie Reggie and Ray had now watched together three times, Reggie wiped furiously at his face as though it would hide the fact that he'd been ugly crying. "I don't get it, Ray. This movie gets me every time. I know what's going to happen, and I still sob like a baby and there's no changing that."

He looked over at Ray, whose cheeks were also tear-streaked and sticky-dry, as he stared at the rolling words on the screen. Reggie frowned. "It's okay to be sad about her being gone," he said softly. "I mean, I don't really know what it's like, loving someone like you did with Julie's mom, but I know what it's like to lose someone."

He brought his feet up onto the couch and hugged his knees to his chest. "Even if it's me who was the one lost." While Luke had sought out his parents and Alex put all his attention on his future with Willie, Reggie had only focused on his insular present. It didn't seem all that important to him to seek out the past, not with the way he and his family had left things. 

He propped his chin up on his knees and looked at Ray. "Do you think I should go find them?" he asked.

Ray lifted the TV remote, clicked it, and the screen zapped to black. He leaned forward and put his hands against the side of his head, shoulders shaking slightly.

"Maybe I should," Reggie continued. "Maybe I just need to know where they are and what they're up to. I mean, my dad wasn't like you. My family wasn't like this one. Julie's lucky. Really lucky. I guess -" What did he think he'd see if he found his parents? What did he think would change? He knew Julie had given Luke's parents that song Luke wrote for his mom, but Reggie didn't have anything like that. He wouldn't be able to talk to his parents just like he couldn't really talk to Ray.

"I like the way things are here, Ray," Reggie whispered. "So it's okay that I just stay here with you, right?" He paused. "Blink once for yes and twice for no," he added wryly.

When Ray got up, his face wetter now than it had been moments before, Reggie shut up. He watched Ray turn off the lamp on the table and listened to his heavy footsteps travel up the stairs. Reggie pressed his cheek against his knees and closed his eyes.

+1.

It was a down in the dumps kind of day for Reggie, the kind where he preferred to hole himself up somewhere and pluck chords out of his bass, lost in his own headspace. He sat on a wobbly stool he'd found up in the loft, his back to the garage door, his bass across his lap.

"One," he strummed, then - "two" - again - "three" - a third time. The strings of his bass guitar vibrated against the pads of his fingers, one of the tactile elements of life still lingering in this afterlife for Reggie. It had always made him feel better connected to his bass, like it was an extension of his body, and he was grateful it wasn't missing. Like eating and sleeping were.

Behind him, the door opened. Figuring it was just Julie or Flynn or one of the guys trying to act normal, like a lifer, Reggie kept at it, moving up the chords and pressing his fingers into the strings tightly.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize anyone was in here - " A pause and then Ray continued. "Wait, Julie didn't tell me the guys were in town."

 _Ghost_ bumps prickled the back of Reggie's neck and he would have dropped his precious bass guitar if it hadn't been strapped around his neck. He nearly fell off the stool anyway. "Ray? You can see me?"

Ray stood a few steps inside the garage, a wary look on his face. He was looking right at Reggie. "... yes?"

"Oh my gosh, seriously? This is so awesome. Oh shoot, should I keep playing?" He kept his fingers against his guitar strings, ensuring they made even just the faintest of sounds. Just in case he needed to do that to keep this up. "Is this like a Flynn thing, except - wait, Julie's not here. How can you see me if Julie isn't here?" He called out to her. "Julie? Are you in here, too?" 

"Julie's still at school," Ray said carefully. He hadn't moved any closer yet.

Reggie's eyes widened. "Whoa, really? But -"

Ray held up a hand to keep Reggie from going off again. "I get the feeling I'm missing something here," he said. He looked away from Reggie now, off to the band's equipment all set up, to Julie's mom's piano, to the couch where he noticed now a haphazard (and likely dirty) pile of discarded flannel and t-shirts. 

"Yeah," Reggie said quickly. "I mean, you are. I think. Hey, I'm Reggie, by the way. I play bass." He shifted his guitar forward even as he kept the chords going. "It's so cool that you can see me. I didn't think that you ever would."

"What's going on?" 

Reggie reached up and scratched the back of his head and looked around as though expecting Julie or the guys or even Flynn to show up and help him out. But after an extended moment of silence where he could tell that Ray was getting anxious, he blurted out, "We're ghosts." Reggie pulled a face but kept soldiering on. "The band. Me and Alex and Luke. We're - ghosts. I mean, we're dead, and now we're ghosts, and for some reason Julie can see us all the time and then when we play everyone else can see us, you know - you've seen us play. But we're not holograms or whatever. We're - er - ghosts."

"Ghosts," Ray repeated, looking pale and confused.

"Yup," Reggie nodded. 

"So you're - not Swedish and don't zap in as holograms for the performances?"

"Nope."

Something akin to shock mixed with realization mixed with horror passed across Ray's face. He looked at Reggie. "Are you always here? I mean - do you stay here, in the garage?"

"Yup."

"I have three teenage boys living in my garage?" Ray burst out with.

Reggie waved his arms, his bass swinging a little. "No, no, I mean - yes. But, I mean, like, we're ghosts, so we're not alive. We're totally dead. But we stay here. Mostly. Sometimes I hang out with you in the house though. We watched 'The Notebook' together last weekend."

Ray reached out for the piano and leaned himself heavily against it. "Uh, well, wow. I don't even know what to say about all that."

Reggie's face fell. He knew it was weird, how much he hung out with Ray, Julie's dad, a lifer who couldn't see or hear him. But he liked those moments together. He needed them. If they were going to stop just because now Ray could see him, well - he'd rather go back to before. He wished he'd never wished all those times that Ray _could_ see him. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "It's just, I like you. And Julie. I mean, your whole family. It's not like it was for me, back when I was alive, I mean. My family wasn't like this. So I just -"

Before he could continue, Luke popped in beside him. "What's up, Reg?" he asked, jutting his chin out in his trademark nod. 

"I'm just talking to Ray," Reggie said.

"You're always talking to Ray," Luke said, moving past him to pick up his guitar and strap it on. "You know he can't hear you. Hey, can we go over the chorus of the new song we've been working on again? I want to try something."

Ray was looking at the both of them now, silently, shoulders tense.

Reggie gestured to him while looking at Luke. "He can hear me now. He can hear you now, I think. He can see us, too."

"Stop joking around, Reggie," Luke said, with a nervous laugh and glance over his shoulder toward Ray.

"You must be Luke," Ray said, seeming to finally find his voice again. He cleared his throat. "I have a lot - a _lot_ \- of questions, especially for Julie. But for now - " He stepped forward and kind of extended his hand toward Reggie. "It's nice to meet you, Reggie, finally. I'm Ray. You can watch 'The Notebook' with me anytime you want to."

Reggie tried to shake his hand, but Ray's passed right through his. Sheepish, he shrugged. He felt the pleased blush high on his cheeks. "Cool, Ray, thanks. I'd like that."

Beside him, Luke shook his head. "What the heck is 'The Notebook?'"


End file.
